Heretofore, light-emitting devices that are provided with a light-emitting diode (LED) have widely been used to illuminate the passenger compartments of vehicles.
There has been proposed a technical idea that, in a light-emitting device of the above type, a lens (light guide) for covering an LED is disposed on the mounting surface of a board on which the LED is mounted, and a case is mounted on a connector while pressing an upper surface of the lens toward the board, thereby sandwiching and holding the lens and the board (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-083210).
According to the invention disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-083210, however, since the board and the lens are sandwiched and held using the case and the connector, it is necessary to make the lens relatively strong. Consequently, the lens itself becomes large in size, and accordingly the light-emitting device becomes large in size and weight as a whole.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2009-239255, for example, proposes a light-emitting device wherein a board is held in position with stress acting on a light guide being reduced. The light-emitting device is provided with a case and a cover fitting into the case. A board with a bombshell-shaped LED lamp mounted thereon is disposed in a chamber that is defined between the case and the cover, which sandwich the board therebetween.
Specifically, the case has a pair of confronting side walls having respective holes defined therein. The cover that is held in abutment against one surface (mounting surface) of the board has teeth fitted in the holes of the side walls. The side walls are joined by a wall having a lower end surface. Under a condition that the lower end surface abuts against the other surface of the board, the teeth are fitted in the holes, whereby the board is held.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2009-239255 also discloses a technical idea wherein a tubular portion for inserting therein a rod-shaped light guide body (light guide) for guiding light emitted from the LED lamp is disposed in the case and the tubular portion has on an inner surface thereof a protrusion for positioning the light guide body, thereby keeping the distance between the light guide body and the LED lamp constant.